Palo Alto doctor pleads no contest to torching his San Carlos office

By Bonnie Eslinger

Daily News Staff Writer

Posted:
02/01/2014 12:54:11 PM PST

Updated:
02/01/2014 12:54:30 PM PST

A Palo Alto man who set his San Carlos electronic cigarette business office ablaze pleaded no contest Thursday to unlawfully causing a fire, according to the San Mateo County District Attorney's Office.

Noah Mark Minskoff, 35, was arrested in December 2012 after sheriff's deputies went to his business, Thermo-Essence Technologies at 871 Industrial Road, and found that he had torn apart the office and lit the floor, prosecutors said.

Minskoff had tried to torch the business two days earlier, setting furniture and other items on fire. Thermo-Essence Technologies designs and sells electronic cigarettes and portable vaporizers.

Detectives who later searched the business' warehouse found four assault weapons and high-capacity magazines of ammunition.

Minskoff, a former Army Ranger, had been prohibited by a court order from having weapons.

Geoff Carr, Minskoff's defense attorney, said his client was going through a divorce and had a breakdown. There's a history of mental illness in Minskoff's family, he said.

Minskoff had been charged with arson, vandalism, resisting arrest, and possession of prohibited weapons. On Thursday he accepted a deal in which he pleaded no contest to one felony count of causing a structure fire in exchange for no state prison and six months maximum in county jail.

Carr called the reduced charges a "good compromise."

"He had a breakdown and he set fire to some things kind of randomly in his own business, that's the odd part," Carr said. "It was just a sad event in an otherwise brilliant life."